Corn Cookbook

Acknowledgements Contents Introduction…………………………………………………1 Illustrations Food map…………………………………………..7 Corn Through the Ages…………………………..9 Anatomy of Corn………………………………….11 Corn planting and harvesting……………………13 Types of Corn and its Uses………………………15 Essays Rivera’s Woman Grinding Maize………………..17 This project could not have been done without the cooperation by Samantha Garcia and assistance of each co-author. We give a special thanks to Modotti’s Mexican Revolution, Guitar, Corn and co-authors Samantha Garcia for the cover artwork and Katelyn Ammunition Belt…………………………………..21 Mays for the original illustrations. by Emily Bates Martinez’s Farm Workers’ Altar………………….27 by Jesse Latimer Rickard’s Blue Corn Room……………………….39 by Katelyn Mays Recipes Tortillas…………………………………………….45 Bannock……………………………………………47 Za…………………………………………………..48 Roasted Corn Succotash…………………………49 Bibliography………………………………………………..51 1 2 Introduction Corn, or maize (Zea mays), has a long and rich history, with strong cultural ties to native and mestizo populations of the Americas. The crop originated as a wild grass, teosinte, somewhere in southern Mesoamerica (Studer et al. 2011). Genetic evidence places the split from teosinte to corn approximately ten-thousand years ago, suggesting the earliest experiments of domestication by humans (Studer et al. 2011; University of Wisconsin-Madison 2011). Archaeological research suggests that it was in the Oaxaca and Tehuácan valleys of modern-day Mexico, where the crop was first fully cultivated (Benz 2001, 2104). Thus, the spread of corn began. Cultural diffusion carried corn across the Americas, arriving in the lower Amazon basin by 4,000 BC (Bush et al. 1989, 304). The crop spread by sea into the Caribbean, reaching Haiti by 1,450 BC (Staller et al. 2006, 331). Similarly, the crop spread northward, reaching modern-day Ohio over seventeen- hundred years ago. (Riley et al. 1994, 495). Italian explorer Christopher Columbus was exposed to the plant and its uses by the native Taino of the Island of Hispaniola, initiating the crop's spread across the Atlantic in the 1490s (Jeffreys 1955, 427). By the 17th century, corn was introduced to Asian and African ports from Europe by the Portuguese (Miracle 1965). Due to a relatively short growing period, corn became a popular crop throughout the Old World. However, Europeans did not take the process of nixtamalization with the crop. Figure 1. Detail from the Florentine Codex of Aztec harvesting corn, Bernardino de Sahagún, 16th century, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. 3 4 Nixtamal comes from the Nahuatl most diverse agricultural products of the 21st century. Not only word nextil, meaning ashes, and is is corn used to feed people and livestock, but also utilized in the process of soaking the kernels in the production of a wide array of commodities. Products found an alkaline solution and was in most people's kitchens such as alcohol, vinegar, oil, and adopted by native populations fructose syrups, and starch thickeners are secondary products throughout the New World of corn. Industries also utilize corn to produce textiles, (Clampitt 2015, 7). Nixtamalization lubricants, rubber, corks, adhesives, commercial binders, made the removal of the tough industrial biofuels, and bioplastics. Moreover, corn silk has exterior of the kernels and grinding proven to possess medicinal qualities. Aqueous extracts from easier and unlocked nutrients like corn silk have proven to niacin (B vitamins). Without this help treat urinary tract process, Old World populations infections and other that transitioned to a primary diet of urinary system ailments th Figure 2. Young Corn God, 8 corn often suffered from pellagra— (Sahib et al. 2012). century Maya, Mexico. Ceramic and pigment, 8 1/8 x 2 x 1 1/2 in. The a dermatological disease resulting For hundreds or Met Museum, New York. from too little niacin in the diet even thousands of years, (Berdanier 2019). However, corn was the principal nixtamalization unlocks corn's full nutritional value. Once grain and source of processed, corn becomes an excellent source of protein, calories for many cultures niacin, fiber, iron, potassium, selenium, and vitamins A, C, and Figure 3. Detail from Crow Canyon Petroglyphs across the Americas. depicting a corn stalk. 16th-17th century K (USDA n.d.; Kumar and Jhariya 2013, 7). Consequently, corn Ancestral Puebloan. Photo taken by Bureau of Corn is an annual grass, meaning it grows and reaches iconography appeared Land Management, New Mexico full maturity in a single growing season. In the US, corn is throughout the New typically planted in April and harvested by November. The World, seen in sculpture, altars, codices, and rock art that plant is up to eight feet tall and produces one or two ears of span from the Inca of Peru to the Ancestral Puebloans of New corn which harvested by hand or combine. As of 2019, the US Mexico (Figure 3). Many Mesoamerican civilizations revered planted 91.7 million acres of corn (Capehart and Proper 2019), the crop and attributed corn to major deities for which they producing 366 million metric tons of the crop (US Grains built effigies (Figure 2) and produced offerings (Benitez 2014). Council n.d.) It is currently the largest crop in the US (Capehart Western culture has depicted the crop since the 16th century, and Proper 2019). Additionally, corn is arguably one of the painted by Italian artist Giovanni da Udine in the Villa Introduction 5 6 Farnesina (Figure 3), less than thirty years after the become a point of introduction of the crop by Columbus (Janick and Caneva contention for rural 2005, 71). Moreover, 16th-century ethnographic accounts by farmers in Mexico as Spanish friar Bernadino de Sahagún illustrate the Aztec corn imports from the farming corn in the Florentine Codex (Figure 1). By the 19th US drastically century, corn was integrated into American and European still increase as a result of lifes (Figure 5). the North American Despite the significance corn held Free Trade Agreement in pre-Columbian American Figure 5. Corn and Cantaloupe by Raphael Peale, ca. (NAFTA). Genetically 1813. Oil on panel, 14 1/2 x 19 1/2 in. Crystal Bridges societies, once colonialized, many Museum of American Art, Bentonville. modified corn imports colonial cultures considered the have altered the price grain food for the poor. During and biodiversity of the crop that sustain many small the Spanish occupation of the communities throughout Mexico, which threaten their Americas, the higher classes and economic independence and food sovereignty (Gálvez 2018). nobility ate wheat bread as the In this book, readers will encounter four different indentured Indians and mestizos essays that respond to artworks that feature corn. Each subsisted on corn products artwork was created in response to the times and movements Figure 4. Detail from Loggia of (Hartigan 2017; Montaño Psyche by Giovanni de Udine, 1505- that occurred during the 20th century. In each response, the 1509, Villa Farnesina, Rome. 2001). According to accounts by writers address the material, compositional, symbolic, and American chef, Helen Corbitt, this social role corn plays in each artwork. Moreover, readers are classist and racial associations of corn with Indian and more provided with four recipes that feature corn and corn impoverished populations persisted in twentieth-century products, which take inspiration from the native cultures of Mexico, during her visits between 1930 and 1960 (de Cabria the Americas that have been utilizing the crop for millennia. and Corbitt 1961). In spite of this, during the 20th century, corn was depicted by Latinx and American artists as part of native and mestizo artistic, cultural, and social movements such as Mexican Muralism, the Chicano movement, and the American Indian Movement. For these movements, corn was an iconographic symbol for shared identity, heritage, and ecology, both past and present. In the 21st century, corn has Introduction 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Rivera’s Woman Grinding Maize The oil painting Woman Grinding Maize (1924) by Diego Rivera (1886- 1957) depicts the strenuous labor that women in By Samantha Garcia rural or low-income households had to deal with on a day to day basis. The attributes that come with the labor work are unequal but are normalized in different culture’s such as with the Mexican heritage. The artist behind this work is, Post-Impressionist and Mexican muralist, Diego Rivera. Rivera was born in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1886. Rivera reflects on Mexican history and their daily lives, but most importantly focuses on the social inequalities of the laborers and peasantry. Some works hold a lot of controversy but that was the statement he was trying to achieve. During the Mexican Revolution, Diego Rivera was abroad in Europe and Italy where he took interest in Renaissance frescoes. A year later he returned to Mexico and became involved in mural paintings that reflected the Mexican Revolution that had just ended. The painting of Woman Grinding Maize has the main focal point showing a woman on her knees, hunched over, a metate or large grinding stone, working to smooth out the maize. The woman is shown wearing a loose white dress that takes up about a third of the surface, but the warm hue of her skin tone causes the eyes to then focus on her arm. Her arms are stiff and flexed showing the exertion that needs to be applied when working on the metate. The face of the woman is cast with a shadow and the bottom half is covered by her shoulder making it hard to see her distinct features. There’s a simplicity with the colors and lines being used in the piece but that leads to the symbolism that’s behind it. As imagery of a woman grinding maize is presented, I will state why Diego Rivera opened a window into social issues regarding the motif of women laborers in Indigenous and Mexican Cultures.

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